Acute bilateral blindness due to diffuse outer retinopathy following clear lens exchange: a case report

BACKGROUND: As the trend of refractive lens exchange for presbyopia continues to grow, our case report shows the first occurrence of an acute bilateral outer retinopathy following uncomplicated sequential clear lens extraction in an otherwise healthy individual. CASE PRESENTATION: A 54-year-old male without significant medical history benefited from a sequential bilateral lens exchange for presbyopia. He then experienced a rapid vision loss in both eyes, accompanied by photopsias and myodesopsias, with symptoms appearing respectively 4 and 3 weeks after the surgeries. Multimodal imaging revealed a fulminant outer retinopathy, leading to a total loss of light perception within a few days. Immediate intravenous corticosteroid therapy was administered, permitting to recover a small area of central visual function in both eyes, enabling shape and color distinction. The primary diagnostic hypothesis is a presumed autoimmune retinopathy, triggered by the cataract extraction, while an alternative diagnosis could be a toxic reaction secondary to the use of intracameral cefuroxime and lidocaine during the surgery. CONCLUSION: In this report, the authors describe the first recorded instance of outer retinopathy following cataract surgery. This occurrence raises the possibility of auto-immunization leading to retinal atrophy and vision loss as a potential outcome after undergoing cataract surgery. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12886-023-03171-1.